Chemical & Related Manufacturing

Background

The chemical industry is composed of producers of chemicals, household cleansers, plastics, rubber, paints and explosives. Its products are used on a daily basis by millions of Americans -- they're everywhere -- but despite health problems that have been linked to some of them, there has been a dearth of study and regulatory action in the area, leaving a number of questions about safety unanswered.

Contributions from political action committees and employees associated with the industry spiked dramatically in recent years, reaching close to $47 million during the 2012 cycle.

Until then, the industry had never spent more than $13.5 million in any given election since at least 1990. The main protagonist of the 2012 spike was Harold Simmons, the owner of a holding company, Contran Corp., the subsidiaries of which are involved in chemicals, metals, hazardous waste disposal and other work. Calling Barack Obama, who was running for re-election in 2012, "the most dangerous man in America," Simmons and his companies gave $31.7 million in that cycle to various Republican super PACs and other entities to try to defeat him. Simmons himself died in 2013, and the industry's contributions in 2014 settled back down to about $14.2 million -- still the most it had ever spent in a midterm election.

Regardless of the party in power, the chemical industry has consistently leaned red.

Chemical groups are in a near constant state of conflict with environmentalists and consumer advocates -- key constituency groups of Democrats. This was one of the few industries to contribute more money to John McCain than Barack Obama during the 2008 presidential election. Since then, it has shown an even stronger preference for Republicans, who received 77 percent of its political donations during the 2012 cycle. Since 1990, Republicans have received nearly three-quarters of the $141 million contributed by the industry.

In recent years, the industry has expanded its lobbying efforts. At the federal level, it spent a record $64.7 million in 2014, when chemical interests were pushing for a bill sponsored by Sens. Mark Udall (D-N.M.) and David Vitter (R-La.) that would overhaul the 1976 Toxic Substances Control Act. The legislation was disavowed by environmental advocates for weakening states' regulatory authority, but it was reintroduced in 2015. And in the aftermath of the early 2014 chemical spills in West Virginia and North Carolina, several industry giants intensified their lobbying efforts, including Dow Chemical, Goodyear Tire & Rubber, and Eastman Chemical, which produced coal-washing agents that leaked into the Elk River. Regulations of genetically modified organisms are also on the chemical industry's radar; in 2013, Dupont Co. joined biotechnology company Monsanto in lobbying to defeat a Senate GMO labeling bill.

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